The present invention generally relates to an automatic accompaniment device which is applicable to automatic rhythm performance and other forms of automatic accompaniment, and more particularly to such a device which is capable of making and changing accompaniment patterns with utmost ease.
For providing automatic accompaniment patterns desired by the users, the prior art automatic accompaniment devices typically depend on an approach of selecting any of plural accompaniment patterns that are stored in memory in advance. However, this approach has the disadvantage that only a limited number of accompaniment patterns can be selected. Namely, in this type of prior art automatic accompaniment devices, the number of accompaniment patterns that can be stored in memory is so limited that it is only allowed to merely select as close patterns as possible to what the users actually desire. Thus, more often than not, accompaniment patterns can not be provided which are truly satisfactory to the users.
So, as an approach for freely making automatic accompaniment patterns in accordance with the users' desire, it has been proposed that desired accompaniment patterns are sampled or made and stored into memory by the user manually playing a keyboard of electronic musical instrument etc. in an arbitrary manner. In this way, automatic accompaniment can be performed by reading out the accompaniment patterns stored in the memory. Nevertheless, this approach also has the problem that it is difficult, if not impossible, to make proper accompaniment patterns unless the user has enough musical knowledge and performance skill. Besides, even if the user has enough knowledge and performance skill, it often takes a considerable amount of time and labor to make accompaniment patterns, and this renders it very difficult to make accompaniment patterns as desired by the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,370 discloses a solution for facilitating the rhythm performance pattern making. According to the disclosure, plural patterns are stored in advance for each percussive tone source in such a manner that desired pattern is selected for each of the tone source, so that a desired rhythm performance pattern as a whole can be provided by a combination of the selected patterns for the respective percussive tone sources. But, with the disclosed technique, it is necessary to make separate selections of the percussive tone source and pattern, which is very troublesome and time-consuming. The disclosed technique also has the problem of poor operability and is not satisfactory in that variation of performance patterns provided by the combination of the stored patterns is quite limited. Further, since selection can be made only from the stored patterns, it is not possible to make accompaniment patterns freely at the user's will.